In the designing of efficient and effective crop irrigation systems, it is highly desirable to have access to a suite of analytical tools which can assist the designer in the selection and placement of irrigation system components to customize and optimize the design of an irrigation system to suit varying irrigation requirements according to different crops and differing geophysical conditions.
For example, in an irrigation system having a basically linear water distribution boom line, such as used in center pivot and linear movement type irrigation systems, the flow requirements and nozzle sizes for each laterally adjacent sprinkler head are conventionally determined according to an irrigation area-based process that relies on the precipitation pattern coverage area associated with each individual sprinkler head and a set distance between laterally adjacent sprinkler heads. FIG. 1 shows a diagram illustrating this conventional “area-based” design technique. Using this technique, positions of each sprinkler head along the lateral extent of a linear boom line are first selected or set using a best estimate or most convenient fixed spacing between sprinkler heads. The flow rate and required nozzle size at each sprinkler head location are then determined based on the coverage pattern area for each particular sprinkler head and the “halfway” distance to a neighboring or laterally adjacent sprinkler.
It has been noticed that conventional “coverage area” based design computations for sprinkler and nozzle configuration in irrigation systems often prove to be somewhat inaccurate when compared with measured precipitation depths that were actually delivered by systems designed using this coverage area design approach. Consequently, there is a need for more precise methods and computational tools to aid sprinkler irrigation system designers and users in the setup and configuration of customized irrigation systems which can be optimized for each particular application and location. There is also a need to provide sprinkler irrigation system designers and users with advanced and automated design tools which can accurately model and predict resultant irrigation depths prior to installation and operation of components in the field. In particular, there is a need for improved analytical techniques and automated design tools for optimizing sprinkler head positions and nozzle size specifications for customized installations of center pivot and linear movement type irrigation systems. Accordingly, disclosed herein is a nonlimiting illustrative example implementation of an apparatus and adaptive method for designing, modeling and evaluating sprinkler head configurations in various irrigation systems and, in particular, for providing improved design and modeling of center pivot and linear movement type irrigation systems.